(Sings.

White his shroud as the mountain snow,

Enter King
Queen. Alas, look here, my lord.
Oph.. Larded all with sweet flowers ;

Which bewept to the grave did go,

With true-love showers.

King. How do you, pretty lady?

Oph. Well, God’ield you! They say, the owl was a baker's daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table !

King. Conceit upon her father.

Oph. Pray, let us have no words of this; but when they ask you, what it means, say you this:

Good morrow, 'tis Saint Valentine's day,

All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,

To be your Valentine :

Then up he rose, and don'd his clothes,

And dupp'd the chamber door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid

Never departed more.

King. Pretty Ophelia !
Oph. Indeed, without an oath, I'll make an end on't:

By Gis, and by Saint Charity,

Alack, and fye for shame!
Young men will do't, if they come to't;

By cock, they are to blame.

Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
You promis’d me to wed:

[He answers.]
So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,

An thou hadst not come to my bed.

King. How long hath she been thus ?

Oph. I hope, all will be well. We must be patient : but I cannot choose but weep, to think, they should lay him i’the cold ground: My brother shall know of it, and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies: good night, good night.

[Exit. · King. Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you.

[Erit Horatio. O! this is the poison of deep grief; it springs All from her father's death: And now behold, O Gertrude, Gertrude, When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions! First, her father slain ; Next, your son gone; and he most violent author Of his own just remove: The people muddied, Thick and unwholsome in their thoughts and whispers, For good Polonius' death; and we have done but

greenly, In hugger-mugger to inter bim: Poor Ophelia Divided from herself, and her fair judgment; Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts. Last, and as much containing as all these, Her brother is in secret come from France : Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds, And wants not buzzers to infect his ear With pestilent speeches of his father's death;

Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd,
Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering piece, in many places
Gives me superfluous death!

[A noise within. Queen. Alack! what noise is this?

Enter a Gentleman.
King. Attend.
Where are my Switzers ? Let them guard the door:
What is the matter ?

Gent. Save yourself, my lord ;
The ocean, overpeering of his list,
Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste,
Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,
O’erbears your officers ! The rabble call him, lord;
And, as the world were now but to begin,
Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
The ratifiers and props of every word,
They cry, Choose we; Laertes shall be king !
Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds,
Laertes shall be king, Laertes king !

Queen. How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs.
King. The doors are broke.

[Noise within.

Enter LAERTES armed ; Danes following.
Laer. Where is this king ?-Sirs, stand you all with-

out.
Dan. No, let's come in.
Laer. I pray you, give me leave.
Dan. We will, we will.

[They retire without the door.

Laer. I thank you :-keep the door.–O thou vile

king, Give me my father.

Queen. Calmly, good Laertes
Laer. That drop of blood, that's calm, proclaims

me bastard ;
Cries, cuckold, to my father ; brands the harlot
Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow
Of my true mother.

King. What is the cause, Laertes,
That thy rebellion look so giant-like? -
Let him go, Gertrude ; do not fear our person ;
There's such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will.—Tell me, Laertes,
Why art thou thus incens'd ;-Let him go, Gertrude ;-
Speak, man.

Laer. Where is my father?
King. Dead.
Queen. But not by him.
King. Let him demand his fill.

Laer. How came he dead ? I'll not be juggled with:
To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil !
Conscience, and grace, to the profoundest pit!
I dare damnation : To this point I stand,
That both the worlds I give to negligence,
Let come what comes; only I'll be reveng’d
Most throughly for my father.

King. Who shall stay you?

Laer. My will, not all the world's :
And, for my means, I'll husband them so well,
They shall go far with little.

King. Good Laertes,

If you desire to know the certainty
Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge,
That, sweepstake, you will draw both friend and foe,
Winner and loser ?

Laer. None but his enemies.
King. Will you know them then ?
Laer. To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my

arms;
And, like the kind life-rend'ring pelican,
Repast them with my blood.

King. Why, now you speak
Like a good child, and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your father's death,
And am most sensibly in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgment 'pear,
As day does to your eye.

Danes. [Within.] Let her come in.
Laer. How now! what noise is that?

Enter Ophelia, fantastically dressed with straws and

flowers.
O heat, dry up my brains ! tears seven times salt,
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye !
By heaven, thy madness shall be paid with weight,
Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May !
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia ! -
O heavens ! is't possible, a young maid's wits
Should be as mortal as an old man's life?
Nature is fine in love: and, where 'tis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.

Oph. They bore him barefac'd on the bier ;